


Mother's Love

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, Community: fic_promptly, Dark, F/M, Harm to Children, Introspection, Medical Conditions, Pregnancy complications, Tags can be bears for this kind of fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between nightmares and what-ifs, Cordelia can't sleep</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the my 1MW bingo table with the prompt, "Mother's Love" and the fic_promptly prompt "Any, any, sleeping isn't the problem when the real nightmares are there when he/she is awake"

Cordelia stared out over the dark fields around Vorkosigan Surleau, her thoughts tumbling through her weary mind. Finding the time to sleep wasn't the problem. Sleeping wasn't the problem when the real nightmares were there when she was awake. Cordelia's hand stole to her abdomen, rubbing proactively across her flat stomach. There was no baby in there - hadn't been for months - and tomorrow she and Aral would go get little Miles from his second womb.

Over the last few months, since the revolution, Cordelia had put her best, most optimistic Betan face on whenever the discussion turned to Miles. She had desperately fought against Count Vorkosigan for her son, and she couldn't afford to show an inch of fear or pain around him. But late at night, in the dark, there was no one to judge her.

Cordelia remembered the moment that she had realized how many children Barrayaran women really had. The sight of the woman and her brood of six had been a true eye opener, and Cordelia had begun to envision herself surrounded by little Vorkosigans.

Now, the tests had confirmed that Aral and she would never have another naturally conceived child. For Cordelia, that confirmation had been a minor blip in her newly reconstructed plans. Children were conceived in a lab all the time on Beta Colony, and she had already proven that Barrayaran scientists could operate a Betan vitro capsule. She and Aral should still be able to have a couple, if not a whole handful of children someday.

Alys and Piotr had quickly shown her the error of her thinking. Though there were a few scientists and doctors able to work with the Betan technology, that didn't mean that the society at large of Barrayar was ready for a lot of little test tube children running around. Especially Vor children. Especially children of the Emperor's Regent, when the Regent had as good a blood claim to the throne as his Emperor.

Piotr's vehement denial of Miles had hurt, and Cordelia had become acutely aware that if she and Aral had another male child, he would become Piotr's de facto heir. The old man would never accept Miles unless Miles was all that he had. Cordelia knew that infants - and even toddlers, discovered to have some kind of 'mutation' long after birth - were regularly killed on Barrayar. If she had another child, how long would she need to sleep with one eye open, waiting for her father-in-law to eliminate her hard-fought-for Miles?

While none of the other Vor Lords would be accepting of Miles, Alys had confided that they actually approved of him in concept. Any plan to take over the government that they imagined for Aral all relied upon a healthy heir. The presence of Miles meant that they could still covet the throne for themselves, without seeing Aral's progeny as a threat.

If Cordelia were to have a sting of little Vorkosigan children the natural way, many of the older Vor Lords would grumble, and some of the more desperate ones would see a conspiracy by the Betan tart - as she had heard more than one man refer to her. However, if she had a string of little tube-grown Vorkosigans, it would be a matter of national security and pride. The conspiracy theorists would go into full swing, envisioning a hostile Betan take-over, or Aral ruling the planet with an army of created children at his beck and call.

No one, it appeared, would ever care that Cordelia simply wanted more than one child, or even think that a reason worth noting. It all had to be a grand scheme of one kind or another.

So Cordelia stared out into the darkness and wept for the children that she had only so briefly believed she could even have. They had been impossibilities for years, and faint possibilities for only months, but she still mourned their loss. She knew that the precious faces she had so foolishly imagined would eventually fade from her nightmares, but she wondered if they would ever fade from her waking thoughts.


End file.
